February is a great time of year for trout fishing in Virginia. As a lifelong inhabitant of the Shenandoah Valley (save the few years I spent in graduate school in the flatlands of East Carolina country), I’ve looked forward each year to the thawing and running of the surrounding mountain streams. The native brook trout are spectacularly beautiful, albeit small. It seems the colder the water runs, the brighter their colorations. The stocked brown and rainbow trout are fun to catch too; although much easier to hook, they make up for the weaker fight with their meatier size.
The first February my daughter was able to join me for a hike and mountain trout expedition, she was not yet five years old. Before arriving at my preferred stream, we stopped first at some small tributaries spotted from along the mountain logging road. The U.S. Forestry Department maintains these roads up to a point, and from the end of the road to the stream is a short 30-yard walk along flat ground.
Only, as it turns out, there’s no such thing as a short 30-yard walk along flat ground when you’re a four-year-old girl who’s dad is bent on catching native brook trout in the 20 degree, overcast, mountain wilderness. Especially when the briars are higher than your waist, and your puffy over-all pants keep getting stuck. And your cute little knitted mittens get stuck worse when you try to pull your pants free. And your slightly oversized boots start to slip off. And your daddy just wants to get to the fish.
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Throughout his ministry, Jesus teaches lessons in the form of parables. He explains to the disciples why he uses these illustrations of a moral or spiritual truth hidden within stories:
This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.(Matthew 13:13, NIV)
Jesus speaks in parables, in ways less clear to the spiritually immature, so that his teachings will remain with the intended listener and not be perverted or stolen by those who have no understanding of or maturity in the greater spiritual implications. One of these parables is often interpreted in the simplest of ways by most folks. It’s the Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast.
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” (Matthew 13: 31-33, NIV)
The common interpretation taught to children and adults alike by well-meaning pastors, Sunday School teachers, and youth leaders, is that our faith must be like that of the mustard seed. We might start out small in faith, but our faith can grow to be great! This sounds like a simply lovely message, and one I can see Jesus teaching while hugging little children who have come to visit. However, I believe this is not Jesus’ entire message in this parable. The passages before and after these in Matthew’s gospel support my hunch.
Firstly, mustard is and always has been a weed, a bane of every gardener’s existence. I am quite certain this was the case in first-century Palestine, where the very same ‘black mustard’ (brassica nigra) we now consider invasive in the United States was native at the time. Jesus has just given a longer parable concerning seeds falling on good soil and poor soil, among rocks and among weeds (Matt. 13: 3-9). He continues with another parable concerning a time when weeds would have grown up among the wheat in a field, and have been left to grow until the harvest when they will be sorted and burned away, or punished (Matt. 13: 24-30). And when would a gardener ever want to make a home for ‘birds of the air?’ Let alone the New Testament connotation with ‘birds of the air’ is eerily similar to the ‘prince of the power of the air,’ as in Satan (Eph. 2, 1-2), birds are generally a pest to gardeners.
Secondly, yeast is not good either. Jesus isn’t suddenly turning his back to his Jewish heritage and customs here, advancing the merits of leavened bread. He’s doubling down on the reasons for not introducing leavening to dough: prevention of spoilage. It’s no attribute to be like the yeast that has spread throughout the entire batch of dough. The kingdom of heaven, which Jesus has told us has already come and exists among believers (Sermon on the Mount, ‘The Lord’s Prayer’, Matthew 6), is infected with the yeast, the weeds, the ‘power of the air.’ So what in heaven’s name do we do now?
We live, and love, and serve, and pray IN this world, among the weeds; we do not become OF this world, becoming weeds ourselves.
Jesus’ parable of the mustard and the yeast is a warning. Already among us, those who are stalks of wheat ripening for a fruitful harvest, weeds have begun to spread. They’ve been here as long as we have. They feed off spiritual nutrients meant for you and me, and as they strip away necessary minerals from our spirit, they become stronger all around. They become habitations for birds and other pests, quickening our spiritual demise. They will trip and poke and scratch their way into our faith. They persist among us to this very day.
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We certainly had a problem on our hands, and our legs, and our entire little bodies that day in the woods. Along that short stretch of forrest between the logging road and the trout stream, there were weeds and briars and thorns aplenty, all seeming to converge around my sweet little girl in an attempt to swallow her up and spoil my fishing adventure.
While I’ve often been accused of being too persistent with such adventures, never giving in or allowing my sweet daughter to give in and give up in any fight against nature, I am also guilty of teaching her to conquer her fears and face all challenges with a strong faith in herself and her God.
I reached out my hand to that tiny, frustrated, stuck little girl, lifted her up onto her feet, and taught her to squash the weeds and briars down with her rubber boot as she walked. It took her a few tries, but she eventually started making her way.
So, with a little more effort than we may have enjoyed giving, and taking a little more time than I was first willing to spend, we made it through the briars and found fish. I got to witness my sweet daughter catch her first - a native Brookie - the most beautiful fish. We found such blessings on that stream bank that one might think we would forget entirely about the trials it took to reach the fish. However, we still had to make the trek back to the truck. Through the same briars. All over again.
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The way of the Christian is not an easy one. We often fight through the weeds of this world to make a difference for someone just to be met with more weeds on our return home. Jesus’ followers have always been on the receiving end of forces trying to choke them out, trip them up, and make them give in. And for millennia, Jesus’ followers, by faith, have resisted the power of the air.
As you live in but not of this world today and every day, be comforted in knowing that though weeds surround and yeast endeavors to invade you to the core, your Father in Heaven sees all from above, and is always reaching down to give you the strength to push on.
Christ’s Peace be with you,
J.M.D
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